Every time you get a new phone, it takes you a while to figure out how it works; a new laptop requires multiple calls to the IT department to help you learn the new system; each professional conference you go to reminds you how much you DON’T know. It’s like there’s a conspiracy forcing you into irrelevancy! You walk the fine line between wanting to “stay up” with the times, and feeling like you just can’t keep up with such fast-paced change. Lurking just around the corner is the deep-seated fear that you are becoming irrelevant among generations that are pressing forward at warp speed.

The problem is that you take your cues from those external circumstances and then begin to think that you have no place in such a fast-paced culture that is hip, modern, and really moving. But wait! That assumes that relevancy is the same as being current, up-with-the-times, informed about the latest and coolest gizmo. In reality, relevancy has little to do with those external behaviors.

Some things are never out of date. When you embody these fundamental and timeless themes, you are NEVER irrelevant. The nature of people has not changed much over time. The human heart follows the same patterns as it did millennia ago. Though technology, practices, and external systems have changed, the basic issues every person deals with have not. And when you walk in Godliness you are never irrelevant.

Thousands of years ago, the prophets in the Bible addressed the very same conditions you deal with today – self-sufficiency, arrogance, duplicity, syncretism, isolation. So when Christ invites you to reflect His nature of humility, grace, and peace it is a call to perpetual relevancy. No matter how far behind you feel in the frenetic race to be up on the latest and best, when you walk in the footsteps of Jesus, you are never irrelevant. Those are the people God uses to salt the world and transform the workplace.

Holiness is God’s chief characteristic. The best description of holiness is found in the person of Jesus. When you, by an act of surrender, allow the nature of God to shine through your life in a manner that reflects Jesus, you are the MOST relevant person in the room – whether you can navigate your iPhone or not. Relevancy has to do with engaging and dealing with the most important issues of the human heart.